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This is not a surprise. One, the movie ended on a semi-cliffhanger (If you watched until the middle of the credits, you would know what I mean). Two, whenever a movie does well (especially a superhero movie), a sequel must be made. It’s an unwritten rule.

At first I thought that the whole sequel thing was just a load of crap and speculation. But further research proved me wrong. A short summary has already been released (as well as a pic of Spidey’s new and improved suit!), which can be accessed here. And here is the modest beginning of its Wikipedia page. As you can see, the cast has already been…well, cast.

Here is the summary, for your viewing pleasure:

For Peter Parker, life is busy. Between taking out the bad guys as Spider-Man and spending time with the person he loves, Gwen Stacy, high school graduation can’t come quickly enough. Peter hasn’t forgotten about the promise he made to Gwen’s father to protect her by staying away, but that’s a promise he just can’t keep. Things will change for Peter when a new villain, Electro, emerges, an old friend, Harry Osborn, returns, and Peter uncovers new clues about his past.

Let’s talk about this for a second.

1) NEW VILLAIN NEW VILLAIN NEW VILLAIN ALERT! New villains are always cool, but who was that creepy guy talking to Dr. Connors in the mid-credits scene? I hope it was Electro (or some other villain that will pop up). If not, that’s just stupid. Why would you partially introduce a villain and then never mention him again? There’s been a lot of speculation about this, as evident here. I’m inclined to believe that the dude was indeed Electro, but that’s just me.

2) Harry. Harry is in this movie. Let us pause for a moment of silent screaming. *silently screams* I disliked Harry in the original Spider-man trilogy. As in, how about we just defenestrate you, Mr. Osborn? How about that? There is the possibility that this new Harry will be better than the original. I greatly hope so. But Harry was never ever mentioned in The Amazing Spider-man. Maybe they’re just throwing him in for a plot twist. Whatever the case, Harry better be good. OR ELSE YOU SHALL FACE MY WRATH, MARC WEBB. (Also, it’s absolutely hilarious that the director’s surname is Webb. What a koinkydink.)

3) If you look at the cast list on the previously linked Wikipedia page, you’ll find that Shailene Woodley is playing the role of Mary Jane Watson. Let me make one thing clear: If there is a love triangle, I will throw things. Unfortunately, unless Mary Jane is solely Harry’s love interest in this movie, a love triangle is imminent. ANGER ANGER ANGER. I like Mary Jane and all, but Gwen and Peter are absolutely perfect just the way they are.

4) According to the cast list, Martin Sheen is reprising his role as Uncle Ben. *semi-spoiler alert* Uh…Uncle Ben is dead. He’s been dead for a while. What, is his ghost going to come back and give Peter helpful pieces of advice along the way? Or maybe he’ll just be doing some voice-overs or something when Peter is reminiscing about the good ole days. Or maybe there will be a flashback somewhere. Whatever the case, this is…an interesting piece of information. *end of semi-spoiler*

I’m excited for the return of Spider-man. I truly am, though this blog post may convince you otherwise. I just hope they don’t ruin the wonderful things they did in the first movie. “They” referring mainly to Marc Webb. I happily–though not a little warily–await more news as to what Spider-man will be up to next…

For this pic, I added some paint overlays and subtle effects to give it a cool look (“Cool” as in blues/greens, not “I’m so cool.”). That’s all I can remember from this edit (I did it a while ago…).

I only enhanced the picture for this edit. I adjusted the exposure, colors, et cetera, and then added focal soften to make the flower the only focus point. I tried to bring out the vibrant greens of the picture and give it a springtime look.

I pretty much only sharpened this a little and gave it heatmap. The result was surprisingly favorable. (When I edit pictures, I try out a lot of effects on the pic. You never know what will look cool–this pic is the perfect example!)

This is the same picture as above, with a neon effect. That’s pretty much it. :)

I happened to be sitting in the car parked outside this immensely creepy house and decided to take some pictures of it. A few months later, I stumbled across the pic on my computer, and decided to make it look even creepier. At some point I’m going to add text and make this my own version of the House at the End of the Street poster. (Sorry. I will never be able to forget that movie. :D)

This is another version of the above picture. I went all-out here. I added a green/black/brown horror effect instead of the reddish/orange one I used above. Then I added a smoke overlays, a flame overlay, and a vignette to complete the picture.

This is a picture, as you may have surmised, of a dragonfly which landed on the window screen one fall day. I rotated the picture, added a ton of color-affecting effects, and some grunge and retro overlays. I ended up with the above.

This is one of those spirally thingies that you sometimes see on playgrounds. I think you’re supposed to walk around and around the spirals until you reach the bottom (When I was little, I would just use it like a ladder. I was just practical that way.) I added a hardlight paint effect to this and then gave it a brown/slightly old-looking effect. This is my “subtle browns” edit…

…and this is my CRAZY LIGHTS AND COLOR SQUEEEEEE edit. I gave this the hardlight paint overlay, as well, and enhanced the colors. Then I started in on the extra overlays. I gave it a lot of paint and neon textures–basically everything crazy happened here. I’m the sort of person that loves explosions of color, so I took the liberty of adding many of those to this pic.

I hope you enjoyed my little gallery! In the future, as I shoot more pictures and edit them, I plan on posting more. (Not because it’s an easy post, of course not that…)

The other day I watched The Amazing Spider-man. I had seen it in theatres, and loved it, but had forgotten just how splendid it was. It’s so splendid, in fact, that I decided I’ll review on this here blog.

So. Reviewing. Right.

The Amazing Spider-man is a 2012 Marvel movie. It follows the the life of Peter Parker, who is bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes…Spider-man. The rest of the story focuses on Spider-man’s conflict with the Lizard, also known as Dr. Curt Connors. As always, I don’t feel like getting into the specifics of the plot, so here is the link to the Wikipedia plot summary (There are a good many spoilers in this plot description. Ye have been warned.)

Onto the actors!

Andrew Garfield plays Peter Parker/Spider-man. There are some things you ought to know about Mr. Garfield: 1) He is an excellent actor. 2) He is extremely handsome. 3) He is British. I think you get the point. Anyways, there are just so many things to like about his portrayal of Peter. Garfield perfectly captures the “awkward teenager-ness” of Peter, yet doesn’t make him look dumb. His performance is spectacularly multifaceted. He gives Peter a sarcastic side, an endearing side, and an awesome superhero side. Also, he pulled off a killer American accent for the role. Pretty much, my review of Garfield’s acting is as such: YES YES YES.

Emma Stone plays Gwen Stacy. Ten gold stars. Stone makes Gwen smart, empowered. I don’t think she’s there just to be a romantic interest. She has a purpose. Near the end of the movie, Gwen does something that pretty much saves the city. She doesn’t go hide in a hole. Stone made Gwen intelligent, yet a little quirky. In doing so, she endeared Gwen to the audience. YES YES YES.

Rhys Ifans plays Dr. Curt Connors, the central villain. Instead of just playing the absolutely-evil side of the character, Ifans gave Connors a spectacular character arc. He goes from a well-meaning scientist to a maniac intent of ridding the world of all imperfection. Also, he is British. ‘Nuff said. Ifans gave Connors a soul–and in doing so, he made what could have been a one-dimensional, plain evil character into an immensely complex person that the audience is actually interested in. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The other actors (Denis Leary as Capt. George Stacy, Martin Sheen as Ben Parker, and Sally Fields as May Parker, in particular) all did wonderful jobs. YES YES YESSSSSS!

The cinematography was beautiful. I saw the movie in 3D, and I can easily say this is one of the only movies that merits from being made in 3D. The whole nature of Spider-man’s stunts: swooping, almost graceful dives and climbs were perfectly captured, and the 3D enhanced the film, making it seem like you really were there.

The score by James Horner was…interesting. In some scenes, such as when Peter sneaks into a room filled with bio-cable-weaving-spiders, it was just sort of weird (Weird as in random drums and no real point). But in the action scenes, the music was fast and, well, action-y. Also, the musical themes of the movie were good. The superhero theme was, well, superhero-y. (Not to mention sort of catchy.) And the more romantic theme was, well…romantic. (And very nice.) My rating of the score is 3.75 stars.

I just really enjoyed the movie. Not just the actors, not just the cinematography, not just the action scenes. The thing is, Spider-man, of all the superheroes, is the most relate-able (this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with it, but it’s still my opinion). He’s a high school student. Sure, he has pretty epic powers and takes out bad guys every other day, but he still has to turn in assignments on time, avoid getting detention, and get organic eggs for his aunt on his way home. Aside from his spider-powers, he’s just an ordinary guy, who has problems like everyone else. While I love Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow just like everybody else, Spider-man is the most human of them all. And that’s not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

So there’s this award I received which has now sort of just turned into a question free-for-all in the blogverse. My friend Erin (who I mention in 75% of my posts, but she’s awesome, so deal with it), who received the award as well, came up with so many awesome questions that I can’t help but answer them. I know, this is sort of like cheating, but what can I say? I love questions. And now I don’t need to think of a topic to post on, so, lookee there. My job was just made that much easier.

Here we go!

1) What is your favorite book cover? There are so many. I’ll try to narrow it down to my top five. I can’t choose my absolute favorite. Sorry.

Something about the rainbow spectrum absolutely captivates me. Also, the math-equation-ness of the title is so geeky, it’s awesome.

JUST LOOK AT IT. It’s gorgeous.

2) Favorite movie poster? I really like Catching Fire teaser poster.

Or the Dark Knight Rises poster:

It’s a tie between those two.

3) Butter or no butter on your popcorn? NO BUTTER! Butter is too greasy for me. I love white cheddar seasoning on my popcorn, though. LOTS of white cheddar.

4) What was the scariest movie you’ve ever watched?House at the End of the Street. I am not a horror movie person, never have been. However, Jennifer Lawrence was in it, and my friend took me for free (I can never turn down a free movie!), so I went. Call me a wimp, but I was absolutely terrified. I spent most of the movie with my fingers halfway shoved into my ears. I hate suspense scenes where there’s no music, but you know something’s going to pop out and scream, but you don’t know when…Yeah. Needless to say, for about a month after seeing it, I didn’t like walking around the house at night by myself.

5) Are you fluent in more than one language? Nope. I hope to take some kind of foreign language class in a year or two, but right now, I only know a few phrases in Spanish and something like two words in French and Latin.

6) How often do you change your desktop background on your computer? Every day? Never? Usually about once a month. If I edit a picture and really like it, I’ll set it as my DTBG, but I only get around to that occasionally.

7) Is there snow outside where you live? Yes! It just snowed again this morning and now we have between 6-10 inches of snow. YAY SNOW.

8) Do you have a favorite Youtuber? If so, who? I don’t have an ultimate favorite, but I do like Lindsey Stirling’s channel. Because she’s awesome. *shamelessly promoting*

9) Who was your favorite author as a child (“child” meaning 10 and under)? Andrew Clements. I read his entire oeuvre when I was between the ages of 7 and 10.

10) How is the view from your bedroom window? It’s okay. I can see the road and the driveway (which means I can spot intruders very easily; if I stand very still by the wall I can see everything and nobody can see me…*evil laugh*), but mainly I just see the woods that are in front of our house. So…yeah!

Oh, joy. Now I need to come up with more questions.

1) What is the hands-down worst movie you’ve ever seen?

2) What is your opinion of Will Ferrell?

3) Pepsi or Coke?

4) When writing, do you enjoy torturing your characters or do you like them too much to do so?

5) If you could play any one instrument well, which would you pick?

6) Which character, from any book, are you hopelessly in love with?

7) What is your least favorite word in the English dictionary?

8) Algebra or geometry?

9) Do you like reading “the classics?”

10) What is your opinion of Valentine’s Day? Do you love it or hate it?

Like this:

So here’s another award, this time hailing from Coffee’s awesome blog. She said anybody who wanted the award could have it, and I like awards, because they force me to post but they do all the work for me. (Really, they give you questions and you answer. That’s a pretty dang easy post.)

This award remains unnamed (…I think it might be the Shine On award?), and also has no picture (YESSSSSS HALLELUJAH.) It does have questions. :)

Questions:

1) What was the last book you read? Was it any good? How many stars would you give it, out of 100? I just finished reading The Help. IT WAS AHAMAZING. Very long, but extremely addictive. It was “one of those books” that you physically cannot put down because of its awesomeness. 10 out of 10 stars, definitely. (Also, this is yet another book on my 2013 reading challenge list! So, that’s nice, too.)

2) WHAT ABOUT MOVIES? I love movies. TELL ME YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE. I love movies, too! In fact, I love them so much that I can’t choose a favorite. The Amazing Spiderman. The Avengers. The Dark Knight Rises. Inception. The Hunger Games. (If you haven’t noticed, I love love love superheroes.) Oh, and we can’t forget the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

3) Are you geeky by nature? Yeeeeeessssss. I’m definitely a computer geek. And a book geek. And a movie geek. All of that geekiness has grown over time, but I believe I was just sort of born with a ninja-geeky nature. Yup.

4) Who is your favorite character, from any book/TV show/movie? Why? Ah, poop. There are just too many. Katniss from The Hunger Games is one of the contenders (yes, I know she’s everybody’s favorite character, but for a reason. She’s AWESOME and KICK-BUTT and AWESOME.). So is Hermione from Harry Potter (She’s a book nerd. Of course I like her!) I also like the Black Widow from The Avengers. (Only the movie–I’ve never read the comics.)

5) Who’s your role model? Why? I don’t really have one. All amazing, inspiring people, I suppose. Like Jean Valjean.

6) Which is better: books, TV shows, movies, or music? They’re all so wonderful, except for TV shows [because those are stupid]. We can rule out movies because, while movies are epic, books and music win. Let’s call it a tie.

7) Do you have any (quirky or normal) daily/weekly rituals? Nope. Despite my overall quirkiness, I don’t have any rituals that are particularly crazy. I brush my teeth every night. Does that count?

8) What was the last thing you wrote (besides this post/comment)? Probably an essay about photography for school. Boring, I know, but true.

9) Do you believe in Soul Mates and One True Loves and junk? Not really. I mean, if you’re called to be married, there’s somebody out there who is probably perfect for you, but the whole soul-mate thing just seems stupid to me. Your soul mate could be RIGHT THERE and you might not even notice because you’re so caught up with the idea of finding your soul mate…anyways, yeah. No soul mates for me.

10) WHO IS YOUR OTP AND WHY? Avry/Kerrick from the Healer series. Or Ismae/Gavriel from Grave Mercy. I can’t choose. (Yes, I’m very indecisive when there are so many good choices. DEAL WITH IT.) If we’re talking real life and not fandom-ness, then my answer is NO ONE. I AM ALL ALOOOOOOONE.

Oh, yay! Nomination time!

Well, I’ve decided to do what Coffee did. So, if you’re reading this and want to receive this award, consider it given to you. There. Ta-dah. You just got an award! Congratulotions! (That was not a typo, actually. If you got that little quote, then you’re officially my friend.)

And now I get to write questions for y’all!

1) What is your most prized possession?

2) Which genre of music is your favorite to listen to?

3) Who is your least favorite character in a book/movie/what have you?

8: Do you watch television? I don’t watch any TV shows. Most of them are stupid. But I watch movies all the time, so there’s that.

9: Who is your favorite author? Goodness, these questions. I have too many answers for most of them. J.K. Rowling. Suzanne Collins. Neal Shusterman. Maria V. Snyder. Lloyd Alexander. Shakespeare.

10: Do you like 80’s movies? Not really. I’m not “one of those uneducated kids who doesn’t know what good old movies are like!”, but I just prefer more recent movies, because they’re generally better directed, better cast, better everything.

11: How do you like your eggs? RAW. IN COOKIE DOUGH. [For the sake of sounding semi-normal, however, I will say that I like them scrambled when I’m not eating them raw.]

12: When did you discover blogging? When I learned that a friend of mine had a blog, and it was cool, and so yeah.

13: Why do you like to blog? Because I love writing. And also blogging sort of makes me write SOMETHING, if not in any of my WIPs or anything. Also, it’s just fun.